


Pizza, pasta and Ugg boots

by booksareourlove



Category: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Gen, Reagan is still Reagan though, Wren appears, Yuletide, and they're best friends, they... talk about writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 07:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksareourlove/pseuds/booksareourlove
Summary: The door opened with a rush, and Cath looked up to see Reagan, who stood half frozen, in the middle of closing the door.“What the fuck,” Reagan said, the door slamming shut. “Why are you crying? The semester just ended, and Levi said you finished that short story?”A breathless laugh escaped Cath. “I finished. I finished Carry On.”





	Pizza, pasta and Ugg boots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PaintedYertle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedYertle/gifts).



> For the longest time I wasn't sure how to start. I reread Fangirl and realised that I love that book more than ever, so... dear yuletide recipient, I hope this fic gives you something to smile at.
> 
> Big big thanks to my friend and beta James ([tumblr](https://sisaloofafump.tumblr.com/) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/betwixt.et.between/)). All this time I thought angels were fictional, but they are not.

Cath stared at her screen. Baz is grinning, he’s kissing the mole on Simon’s neck.  _ “Go on, then,” he says. “Carry on, Simon.” _

This was it. This was the last sentence of the last chapter of the fic she’d been working on for over two years. 119,190 words. Maybe she’d write a sequel. Yeah, a sequel sounded good. Or was it too early for these thoughts? Belatedly, she realised that her cheeks were wet and her breathing hitched every time she breathed in. Oh well. It wasn’t like she had never cried when writing.

The door opened with a rush, and Cath looked up to see Reagan, who stood half frozen, in the middle of closing the door.

“What the fuck,” Reagan said, the door slamming shut. “Why are you crying? The semester just ended, and Levi said you finished that short story?”

A breathless laugh escaped Cath. “I finished. I finished Carry On.”

“And that is sad because…?” Reagan sat down on her bed across the room.

“I’m not sad,” Cath replied. “I just have a lot of feelings right now.”

Reagan crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. She was wearing her usual attire of clothes, and her make-up was sharp and beautiful. “I never did any particularly artistic things.”

“But… doing make-up is artistic?” Cath tried to wrap her head around the fact that Reagan was attempting a conversation that included her past  _ and _ feelings.

“Whatever,” Reagan said. “I mean like… I don’t know, creating things out of nothing? You always sit behind that laptop, and now you’re like, crying, and  _ I don’t understand.” _

“What don’t you understand?”

“What does it feel like? Writing.”

“It’s…” Cath struggled for a moment. How to begin? With Wren, she always had this understanding, but Reagan wasn’t Wren. “Well, in high school, I had this English teacher, and she always said that you write with your… heart-blood. Blood of the heart. And when writing Simon and Baz I thought I could understand that, because they are in my heart and in my head and I love them too much to even consider to let them go. But when I wrote that short story for Professor Piper last week, it was like... like I never realised before how much it hurts to take the blood straight from your heart and make it into words.”

Reagan looked at her coolly. “That’s deep.”

Cath laughed. The air bubbled out of her chest, and her ribs ached. “Yeah, I know. I guess that’s what happens when you write about how your mom left you as a child.”

“But you also write about Simon Snow and his vampire boyfriend.”

“Yes! With them, it’s like, coming home and being in a cozy blanket fort.” Cath looked at her last sentence on her screen again and wiped her eyes. With a few clicks she double saved the document and sent it to her beta, who’d look over it before Cath would click the “publish” button on Fanfixx.

Reagan hummed. “But don’t you think it’s slightly creepy that you, a woman, write about boys in love?”

“I asked myself that a lot, too,” Cath answered. “But when Wren and I read the Simon Snow books, we realised that Simon and Baz… well, they’re Simon and Baz. They are so intense, you know, and their relationship in the books leaves so much up for interpretation. And I’ve been a Snowbaz fan forever, I can’t imagine stopping writing about them.” Not yet, anyway.

Reagan eyed Cath from across the room. “If you like to write about them, what do you read? Assuming you stop writing for long enough,” she added with a small smile.

“Penelope slash Agatha. Why, do you want recommendations?”

Reagan snorted. “Only if Agatha dumps Simon. And I want food. Do you want food?”

Cath’s stomach growled, and a look at the time on her laptop told her that she had probably cried about ending Carry On longer than she thought.  _ Sequelsequelsequel, _ a part of her mind murmured, but she knew it would have to wait. She hadn’t yet finished reading Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance to Levi, and maybe she could convince Reagan to read her writing if she wrote about Penelope/Agatha…

“You coming?”

She closed her laptop and grabbed her ID, quickly following Reagan. She’d finished Carry On. She actually did it. Her stomach seemed to call out for food, but something light settled in her. And had Reagan just asked for a fic rec? She had never thought her to be much of a reader, but her best friend had also never asked about her writing.

They reached the dining hall in silence, and Cath watched Reagan pile pizza onto her plate. Cath was immediately drawn to the pasta. She supposed it was true love. Chatter and noise filled the dining hall, and Cath was struck by the sudden realisation that the year was over, that she had survived her first year at college.

Their table was free, and Cath fell into her seat, breathing in the smell of her food, and caught sight of their next door neighbour. “Look, the green-haired girl seems to be no longer green-haired. I wonder if she dyed her hair blue to try something else or to match with her sports hoodie…”

“Cath,” Reagan interrupted her. “Cath. Your sister is wearing Ugg boots. Cath.  _ Cath.” _

Cath looked away from their newly blue-haired neighbour and marvelled at Reagan’s wide-eyed expression. Then she followed her eyes and watched Wren piling salad onto her plate. Wren didn’t look different from usual, wearing dark Jeans and a black fake-leather jacket that barely reached her waist. “The Ugg’s colour definitely clashes with everything else,” she agreed.

“Cath, no. I know you think Ugg boots represent the innocence of Nebraska, but not with a leather jacket.”

Cath felt herself smile. “But isn’t that such a nice statement? That you can be comfortable while wearing a leather jacket and still look perfectly in place with the rest of the world?”

_ “No,” _ Reagan stated, “Ugg boots are not-”

“My Ugg boots are the most comfortable piece of clothing I own,” Wren said, smirking, as she sat down across from them. “Is this what you do in your free time?”

“... yes,” Reagan grumbled.

“Every day,” Cath added and slurped a lone spaghetti.

Wren shook her head but dropped the subject. “How far are you on Simon?”

“Still not farther than the last time you asked. But… I finished Carry On.”

The look on her sister’s face was everything Cath was feeling. “That’s… wow. I’m proud of you.”

“Me, too,” Reagan quietly agreed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
